WHAT KIND OF MEDIA INSTITUTION MIGHT DISTRIBUTE YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT AND WHY?

Evaluation

My magazine would have to be distributed in a form that would be able to be easily accessed by young girls or their parents. This would mean that it would need to be sold in a public place which is perceived as safe for children/teens to go so that teenagers can buy it themselves or so that their parents feel that the magazine is safe by where it is being distributed. The way it is distributed could affect the image of the magazine.

To be able to answer the question clearly I have decided to do some more research into what Media institutes are and what they do. A media Institute is a profit based organisation which controls media text through marketing, regulation, production and distribution. This means that I would have to choose some organisations which I feel would be best suited to distribute my product.

While doing some research into the main magazine institutions I found that four institutions kept coming up repeatedly. These organisations were BBC, Emap, Bauer Media and IPC. As these seem to be the most mentioned I have chosen to do more research into these institutions in particular.

BBC publish a range of magazines aiming at different audiences although they focus mainly on music, gardening, children’s popular TV programmes, cooking, cars and astrology. The Music magazines that the BBC publish are limited as they only publish, It’s Hot, Top of the Pops and Classical music magazine.This would mean that there would be a clear gap for my magazine as the BBC have a lack of music magazines meaning that mine would be perfect to fill the gap. Although Top of the Pops aims for the same audience which means they would be in direct competition.

It has specific publications for each genre and in general these are quite different and contain specific content relating to an industry such as nursing, retail and media. This attracts a very wide audience. Smash hits was emap’s pop magazine which they stopped publishing in 2006. This magazine was much like my own product and even aimed at the same audience which means that it would have been in direct competition with my own product.

The Bauer Publishing Group is a worldwide media empire offering over 230 magazines in 15 countries. They also feature heavily online, TV and a wide range of radio stations.The music magazines that they publish are Kerrang, Q and Mojo. These are three very different magazines to the one I have chosen to make which would mean that their would be a gap in their market but then they're choice of such different genres makes me think that maybe they wouldn’t be best to distribute my magazine.

IPC Media is one of the leading of both consumer magazine and digital publishers in the United Kingdom. It currently produces over 60 iconic media brands. The iconic music magazine brand that IPC Media is well known for is New Musical Express (NME). It was the very first British paper to include a singles chart. Their genre is advertised as rock which would therefore attract a wide audience of both mixed age, gender and target groups such as rockers, punks, and new age groups. As NME is such a respected brand IPC might be a good media institute to distribute my product as it would mean that they know how to handle and grow a brand to make it successful.

I chosen to go with Bauer Media because they seem to publish a variety of magazines meaning that it wouldn’t clash with the other magazines they have but would still fit their simple and elegant appearance.They also distribute very successful magazines meaning that they would be able to make my magazine a success as well. The fact that Bauer is also very good at expanding their brands into other media aspects such as TV channels etc. means that they would be able to do the same with my magazine allowing it to become more widely known and popular.